Increased mobile presence drives cloud infrastructure needs

Wednesday, May 15, 2013 - 6:50pm

The presence of mobile devices in the workplace has changed how employees operate, driving the death of the PC era and supporting the dawn of cloud computing. Employees now demand the ability to leverage high-quality, mission-critical solutions via smartphones and tablets from virtually anywhere - a capability that can be achieved through the cloud.

A recent Vanson Bourne study of 1,300 companies across the United States and U.K. found that 66 percent of respondents said their employees want to access business-level applications through their mobile devices connected to the network. In fact, 82 percent of organizations believe this use of mobile software through the cloud will eventually become the norm.

"This increased focus on enterprise apps and mobility makes it imperative that CIO's transition workloads to the cloud so employees can access corporate data from any device, irrespective of geographical location," cloud expert John Engates asserted.

Mobile apps gain momentum
The survey found that nearly two-thirds of respondents plan to invest more heavily in business applications during the next year, with another 28 percent intending to develop an enterprise app store to make managing mobile solutions in the workplace less complex.

A separate IDC report highlighted how the rapidly evolving mobile landscape is driving the need for more agnostic software that can support access to a broad range of endpoints. This transformation, combined with the proliferation of big data and other technologies, helped bump the global software market to $342 billion in 2012, up 3.6 percent from 2011.

Because the cloud enables more flexible operations, it is an ideal solution to address the requirements of the workplace.

"What's interesting to see is how staff are wanting to access their corporate IT services; they're demanding the same consumer app experience in the workplace from their laptops, smartphones and tablets," said Brian Nicholson from the Manchester Business School. "With our reliance on the PC declining, the onus is on the businesses to deliver their IT services in a format that enables staff to access corporate cloud apps from any device or location."

As smartphones, tablets and other advanced gadgets evolve to support more complex business operations, using those endpoints in the office will be inevitable. By planning ahead and implementing the most appropriate cloud infrastructure, decision-makers can be sure their companies' use of mobile devices is efficient.